Would it be economically feasible?

[SeaGoat]

In todays world, would it be economically feasible to have live in family workers working your land?

For example:
Say you have 500 acres.
In todays world do you think you can divide it into 5 groups:
100 acres goes to cows
100 acres goes to hogs
100 acres goes to chickens
100 acres goes to orchards
100 acres goes to main house and events

Each 100 acres would have a 2/3 bedroom home for a family who would specialized in the animal/land maintenance of that area

The events area could host attractions like a farmer's market, auction site, outdoor venues, etc


I guess you would consider it a mini estate of sorts..

Do you think it's affordable in todays world?
If not, what would have to change?

[jwal10]

Might work if you also grew your own feed on another 100 or more acres. Or a big farm that supported the smaller animal sections....James

[karenp]

Is this your family that has "stock" in the farm or hired help? Do you need to pay for health insurance, workers comp, liability? Who is in charge, how are decisions made? Do you have a back-up plan if one family can't/doesn't keep up with their work?

[Dixie Bee Acres]

Sounds good, but like James said, you need to grow feed. Break it down further, especially for chickens, you could probably keep over 250,000 chickens on 100 acres.
Set aside 5 acres for poultry, that frees up 95 acres for grains and hay.

It's a novel idea, my brother and I discussed this a couple of years ago, but on a much smaller scale.

[SeaGoat]

Im not planning on doing this. It was perfectly hypothetical and I'd understand you'd need adjustments in land usage, I was just giving a simple example.

It's just, you don't see our hear of much of this going on anymore..
I was wondering if its regulations, taxes, or if there is simply no market for it.

[||Downhome||]

Pretty generic layout.

Whats the Goal?
What do you hope to achieve with this ?

[||Downhome||]

Originally Posted by SarahFair

Im not planning on doing this. It was perfectly hypothetical and I'd understand you'd need adjustments in land usage, I was just giving a simple example.

It's just, you don't see our hear of much of this going on anymore..
I was wondering if its regulations, taxes, or if there is simply no market for it.


Sent from my SPH-L710 using Homesteading Today mobile app

A little of all that.

Plus the desire for the good life.

Thats to say little free time on a farm, when things need to be handled you have to handle them.
Most folks like to get up at 6 am be to work by 7 am home at 4 or 5 pm Dinner at 6 pm and the rest of the night to their own devices.
Not to mention the vacations and day trips.
All very unlikely to be that way on a working Farm.

And even with all those little perks people still cry about how bad it is...

Think of the Jetsons, and Georges button pushing fatigue syndrome...

[paradox]

My DH's family used to sort of have this situation though no formal terms where set. There is a large plot of land that has been in the family for several generations. There was, at one point, 3 men all close to the same age - two brothers and a cousin who all enjoyed working as ranchers. They all had their own sections of land that had been handed down to them from their fathers. One raised chickens - had a sign on the gate that said "chicken city population 1,000,005." The five was his family :-) To this day the townfolk still call that area chicken city though there have been no chickens there for years. His brother raised hogs up on the hill which is still called pork chop hill. And the cousin, who was my DH's grandfather ran cattle. They all had their own garden and then they shared eggs and meat and took the rest to sale.

I think if it happens naturally as it did with this family - it works. I think if you try to create it from scratch, probably not so much. Plus I am sure, as you mentioned, regulations are probably much more strict now than they were in that generation.

[highlands]

Yes, it could work, with the right people. We farm about 70 acres raising about 400 pigs including about 60 breeder sows as well as about 300 chickens and assorted other animals and lots of gardens and fruit. We are capable of producing all our own food although we enjoy the luxuries (Chocolate!) from the store too. Farming is what we do. No off farm jobs. We do live very frugally, way below poverty level but then that's pretty high living.

We could do what we do on about half the land we currently use for farming. The other half we're working on improving so we can expand our herd, add sheep again and someday add cattle. With 100 acres of farm land one could do a lot.

In addition to the 70 acres we're using for farming we also have forest land that we do forestry on some years. Timber is a very long term crop and that takes a lot of land, far more than other forms of farming.

Something to realize for comparison is that we live up in the mountains. Steep, rocky, swiftly sloping, poor, acidic thin soil. Keeps the taxes down. On richer flatter land one could do a lot more but then I'm adverse to flooding.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/

[DaleK]

Depends how much time and effort is put into marketing. By themselves, other than perhaps the orchard, none of those is a full-time job unless you're putting a lot of time into marketing.

[jwal10]

When I farmed we had 1000 acres of crops. Wheat, peppermint, grass seed and distilling barley. We also had clover seed, silage corn, oats, barley, lotus, dill, sweet corn and green beans as rotation crops. We had 300 cows and 1000-1200 sheep. We used a lot of what would have been waste for livestock feed. Grass, clover and lotus straw. Peppermint straw, clover and lotus silage. wheat, oat and barley straw for bedding. We rechopped cannery corn and bean stubble for silage. Good money was made from what many saw as waste. Not a lot of hogs as we don't grow corn here but we did sell hogs to the NFO for a few years in the 70's and early 80's. We could easily have had a dairy as we raised corn for silage as a cash crop for neighbor dairies. Being a diversified farm kept us busy but also making money every year....James

[rambler]

My neighbor has a 120 head of milk cows, 700 or so acres of crop land. His wife does part time teaching. Just them and the kids.

Another fella down the road farms 1000 acres corn and beans, on the side he does custom baling. His wife has a real job in town.

Pretty hard to make a living on 100 acres of livestock these days. You would need to be in the right place, and have built up many years of marketing a specialty product, before it would start paying the bills. As we see, some are doing it, but that is uncommon. And there are many thankless years behind it to build it up to there.

Paul

[Old Vet]

Originally Posted by SarahFair

In todays world, would it be economically feasible to have live in family workers working your land?

For example:
Say you have 500 acres.
In todays world do you think you can divide it into 5 groups:
100 acres goes to cows
100 acres goes to hogs
100 acres goes to chickens
100 acres goes to orchards
100 acres goes to main house and events

Each 100 acres would have a 2/3 bedroom home for a family who would specialized in the animal/land maintenance of that area

The events area could host attractions like a farmer's market, auction site, outdoor venues, etc


I guess you would consider it a mini estate of sorts..

Do you think it's affordable in todays world?
If not, what would have to change?

If you have the right person in charge. You name 4 different occupations their and they do not mesh in most people.Is it feasible not unless you have more money than brains.

[rambler]

The thing is, you are talking 5 households, people expect to make $60,000 in a household to pay for the house payments, health insurance, and living expenses, retirement, etc.

So you are asking to net $300,000 off of 500 acres. You are looking for 2 full employees per household......

Sure, people can work a labor of love for nothing, and live below the poverty line, but those are not practical expectations for your scenario.

Livestock take several years before they pay off a net income, and setting this up all new from scratch is going to be darn expensive.

It takes years before such a deal starts showing black ink.

So, it does not sound at all realistic as you describe.

Tho, over 20 years its possible a person could end up there..... It takes special folk, special location, and a whole boatload of money....

Paul

[sammyd]

Neighbors downn the road will expand 200 milk cows whenever one of their kids marries and wants to stay on the farm. Takes a lot of acres to feed 200 cows.

[BigHenTinyBrain]

Originally Posted by SarahFair

It's just, you don't see our hear of much of this going on anymore..
I was wondering if its regulations, taxes, or if there is simply no market for it.

I'm not sure "anymore" is the right word. You didn't see much of this (some kind of co-op monoculture farming?) ever, as far as I know.

Breaking the hypothetical concept down to more workable numbers might mke it easier to imagine- 10 cres per homestead within a larger parcel owned by a group- in your example you have suggested multiple houses and lots of very large outbuildings, which causes a very big tax cost. Also with such a large example you hit the issues of selling- 100 acres of cows, pigs or chickens is far more than small local sellers/grocery/co-ops/farmers markets can reasonably expect to move, and would require a LOT of storage (and electricity to feed all of that freezer space). It would require many people, who all wanted to work together, who were all willing to compromise OR follow a leader/leaders. Farming approaches would all need to line up in some way.
Equipment, feed, heat, taxes, personalities, labor-that-is-not-your-job... I think the reasons this kind of set-up is unlikely are many, and the pay off is questionable.

Although honestly I think the biggest reason co-operative farming is unusual is because people do not get along with others all of the time. There is a LOT of shared responsibility and agreement implied in your scenario, and if you want to see how well a cross section of people can get along just spend half an hour reading ANY forum topic. If you start with a Store Bought Grain Mix or Mix Your Own thread you should get the idea pretty quickly.

[ronbre]

check out paul wheatons place on the www.permies.com forum..might give you some ideas

[Molly Mckee]

I don't think it would work, unless the families were millionaires. You would have to buy land and equipment and probably build or convert buildings. Having events would take special people and very expensive insurance. The start up costs would keep you from suceeding.

[Gravytrain]

Yes...it was called feudalism. It worked well for the lord...not so much for the peasants.

[opportunity]

I know people who work on ranches taking care of the animals but they have 1000's of acres and 100's of cows per family working on the ranch. They still usually have a high turn over rate these type people usually move around a lot looking for something better, or the rich person setting it all up goes broke and they have to sell off and people move on.,